A wellness contributor discusses strengthening immunity and managing stress as cold and flu season approaches.
Subscribe to CTV News to watch more videos: https://www.youtube.com/ctvnews
Connect with CTV News:
For live updates and latest headlines visit: http://www.ctvnews.ca/
For breaking news, fast, download the CTV News App: https://www.ctvnews.ca/app
Must-watch stories and full programs at http://www.ctvnews.ca/video
CTV News on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/discover/CTV-News
CTV News on X (formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/CTVNews
CTV News on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/user/CTVNEWS
CTV News on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/ctv-news
—
CTV News is Canada’s most-watched news organization both locally and nationally, and has a network of national, international, and local news operations.
#ctvnews #ctvnationalnews #canadiannews
Love the new graphic at 7:45. All right, safe to say that cold and flu season has arrived. And if you’re trying to fight off illness, we’ve got some tips that might help you keep those nasty infections at bay. Joining us this morning to help us boost our immune system this season, we welcome our partner, wellness contributor Christina Barrett. Good morning, Christina. Good morning, Crystal. Thank you so much for having me. Well, it’s a pleasure. Let’s talk about some lifestyle habits that can help us reduce stress. Aren’t we all trying to reduce stress? In lifestyle habits, really consistency matters. Getting the appropriate sleep, staying active, participating in mindfulness, all the things we’ve heard before. Um, but really taking the time, especially in cold and flu season, to get appropriate rest. These are just really simple ways to build resistance. And pairing this with some habits uh these kind of habits with targeted supplements can really give your body the extra support it needs during high stress seasons. Okay. So stress season that that kind of when we are stressed out we are more likely to be susceptible to cold and flu. That that that is uh important information there. So when it comes to boosting our immune system this fall you talked about stress reduction. What else can we do? The biggest thing is keep it simple. We don’t want to over complicate it. do really simple things like magnesium is this is really really important to help support relaxation. It helps to calm the nervous system after a busy day. Pairing it with lowd dose things like melatonin if you have found your sleep is disrupted is very very important. It helps to regulate your sleep cycle so your body can rest and repair which is key to having a strong immune function. I always find too making sure you’re doing your B vitamins because they get depleted when you’re stressed um is very very important to keep your levels steady during a busy and demanding times. And finally, a product like altheenine um it is an amino acid from green tea. It’s going to help you promote calm uh and better sleep, but also keep you alert and and awake. Okay. Althanine. I haven’t heard of that before. That sounds uh that sounds like a neat one. Tell me a little bit more about about that. It’s a wonderful regulator. So, like I said, it does come from green tea, so you can get it from there. But then, of course, you have the caffeine that you’re taking as well. So, taking it as a supplement can help regulate your energy levels, so you’re not getting too too worked up, but you’re also not getting too too low. Okay, perfect. Um, what let’s talk about how you personally fit some of these immune boosting habits into your lifestyle. Like, for example, getting enough rest. Getting enough rest, honestly, regimen it. try and set a timer on your phone and just make sure that you are shutting down the blue light stuff ahead of time uh so that you can actually get into a nice proper deep sleep. Supporting with supplements is great, but also there’s a lot of lifestyle things you can do like shutting the TV or the phone off a little bit early and just setting a regular bedtime and maybe not watching that last little bit of Netflix before you go to sleep. If you do find there’s disruption, do a couple nights of a really lowd dose melatonin in combination with magnesium will help you get your sleep cycle back on track. Perfect. And I see the little bottle there. Um, what kind of, uh, supplements do you use? Again, uh I tend to be a high energy kind of girl. So, altheenine to keep me consistent is great. But also that uh melatonin, magnesium with a little bit of GABA to help me sleep just when I have had a couple of nights, sometimes it’s early mornings, sometimes it’s late nights, it really does get me back into that consistent sleep cycle. Uh but if you want to know more about any of these products or any of these items, orange naturals.com or your local Soapie stores are wonderful sources of information. Um they have professionals like myself that would love to talk to you more about it. Perfect. Okay, that’s great. We can we’ve got lots of soies in our region. Anything else you want us to know about our health before we go, Christina? Honestly, just keep your habits consistent and take care of yourself. That’s the biggest way to make sure that you don’t get sick over cold and flu season. All right, Christina, thank you so much for this advice today. Thank you so much for having me, Crystal. Enjoy the rest of your day. You too. That was our partner wellness contributor Christina Barrett with some tips on boosting our immune system during cold and flu
